


Madness of the King

by Dreadfort



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Case Fic, Challenge Response, Georgian Period, High speed carriage chases, M/M, Teenlock, Wigs, thieves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-05
Updated: 2013-06-15
Packaged: 2017-12-14 01:13:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/830997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreadfort/pseuds/Dreadfort
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the case of the infamous wig stealer goes hideously wrong, not even Sherlock can predict its impact on his future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my submission for fuckyeahteenlock's historical au challenge.

 

 

 

“Third one this week,” said Mycroft Holmes, skewering the roast pork on his plate with relish. “National embarrassment; the number of Lords unable to enter the House of Commons, all because some sad man* is going around London, stealing wigs.”

 “Well, what is being done about it?” asked his mother primly, cutting her own serving with precision. 

“We know his methods, so I’m sure it is only a matter of time before -”

The clang of cutlery against china interrupted him; Sherlock announcing his excitement. “How? How is he doing it?” Sherlock cried.

“Sherlock!” their mother hissed. “Sit down at once.” She directed the servants to the spilt dishes with a click.

“It’s quite simple, actually.” Mycroft said. “He’s been riding on the back of carriages, cutting holes in the hoods and taking the wigs straight off the MP’s heads.”

Sherlock’s snort earned himself another glare. His mother glanced pointedly at his chair, tipping her head for emphasis.

He was sitting too far back from the table.

With a look of aggravation only an eleven-year-old could summon, Sherlock jerked his chair forward, drawing out the loud scrape of its legs as they screeched satisfactorily in protest. He bent over his dinner again, only to be checked by a pointedly whispered, “ _No_ elbows on the table!”

Sherlock stabbed a potato viciously, and making sure his mother was watching, brought it to his face and gave it a long, deep sniff.

“ _Sherlock!_ ” She snapped, the large vein near her temple throbbing bulbously. Sherlock laughed to see it, but when he caught his brother’s disapproving gaze the joy dissipated abruptly.

“If it’s quite simple, then why haven’t the police got him yet?” Sherlock said after a few minute’s terse silence.

“Why do you think, little brother?”

“They’re sumphs**?”

“Well,” Mycroft sighed as the plates were cleared, “That’s one way of putting it.”

“I’m going to catch him,” Sherlock declared and motioned to stand up, but his mother cut across him.

“You will do _no_ such thing.”

“But, Mother-“

“ _No_ , Sherlock. For once you will conduct yourself as a reasonable member of society. You will _not_ engage in such activities that will cause our family ridicule. You will model your behaviour after that of your brother.”

With this final denouncement, Lady Holmes excused herself from the table, leaving the newly created wake of abject horror to fester in her absence.

 

 

\-----

 

 

In the late afternoon of the next day, a muddy and wet Sherlock Holmes was hiding outside the large warehouse door of the London Carriage Rental’s store room. He was waiting impatiently for Mr Wildershins to turn his back. 

Tracking down exactly _which_ MPs had had their wigs stolen (local newspaper), their place of residence (sneaking into Mycroft’s study and combing through his files) and their usual route to the House of Commons (map of London; he really ought to have it memorised by now) had been more complicated than anticipated, but he had triumphed – of course – and if Mr Wildershins would just _leave_ he could –

_Now!_

Sherlock ducked through the door, holding it with one hand to stop the threatening creak, then sprinted through the warehouse and hid behind the gleaming wheels of an enormous hansom.

His target carriage was within sight. 

Mr Wildershins whistled an aggravating tune, flipping a dirty cloth over his shoulder as he rummaged for wood polish in the storage drawers on the far wall.  With delicate, exact footsteps, Sherlock darted over to the next carriage, breathing as quietly as he could, despite the heavy beating of his heart.

A loud clutter made him jump, knocking his elbow painfully on the carriage’s panels. Biting back a wince, Sherlock risked a glance at the worker.  He’d dropped the polish. Sherlock watched it careen away from its owner, making a desperate bid for escape out the door, and Mr Wildershins followed like a hound.

Sherlock darted through the room, glorifying in his solitude, and inspected his prize.

The thief had stood on the mudguard when cutting the hole; that was immediately obvious. Less clear was how he’d climbed up.  The arrival of his weight would certainly have tilted the carriage and alerted its occupants. He couldn’t have hidden on the roof as the driver would have spotted him.

The entire rear quarter of the coach came under close scrutiny.

 _There!_ On the elliptic spring.  A small patch of dried mud, unremarkable to most, but clearly forming a small shoe print.

So the thief was his age, or younger. A tiger***? No - posing as a tiger, to fool pass-byers?

After carefully memorising the print’s shape, Sherlock replicated the thief’s actions and swung himself up into position on the carriage.  The fabric had been cut – not slashed – quite a degree of dexterity and confidence had been used.  The knife was serrated, and well used by its owner.  Two cuts; one down – the largest, cut with the fabric’s grain; quicker and quieter – and one across –

“HEY! What the devil do you think you’re doing?”

Sherlock spun around to see the bristles of Mr Wildershin’s moustache sparking with rage, and swung himself neatly off the carriage.

“Come here, boy!” the man roared, bearing down on him, bear-like hands reaching forwards. With a smirk of defiance, but regretting he had been unable to collect all the evidence, Sherlock ducked under the carriage and sprinted out the door.

 

\----

 

It took an atrociously long time before Sherlock had narrowed his search enough that he was reasonably confident he’d have caught the wig-stealer within a day.  Long enough that his mother had commented approvingly on his spending time _quietly_ and _respectably_ in the house, oblivious to the turmoil that had characterised his mind for the past week.

But now the game was afoot!

He stood pressed against the outside of a church, using it as much for shelter against the monotonous London rain as a hiding place.  The suspected thief was due to round the corner any moment now, and a small matchstick-factory boy had promised for a coin that this was his getaway route.

Sherlock had found some ridiculous hat in the depths of Mycroft’s room, and he jammed it on his head to conceal his face.  The likelihood of the MP in the carriage pursuing the sad man was low, but the last thing a future detective needed was public knowledge of his identity.  It was difficult enough with Mycroft elevating the family name even closer to royalty.

He shifted where he stood, debating whether to button his coat, when an enormous coach pulled by two snorting horses, grey coats gleaming in the downpour, stopped in the traffic. And more by chance than skill, Sherlock saw a flash of yellow vanish from behind it.

Tripping on the wet cobblestones, he ran out onto the road, the rain immediately slicking his hair to his face.  Sherlock pushed it away, and – _there!_

The boy’s yellow coat was a rare beacon in the grey haze and bullets of raindrops, and a blob of white in his hand confirmed his identity; Sherlock dove through London’s smog and straight into his goal.

The impact of the pavement threw them apart, Sherlock’s knees burning as the gravel raked across his skin.  But he held the boy’s waistcoat tightly, and when he tried to stand up, Sherlock yanked him back down.

“I’ve got you,” he crowed.

The boy punched him in the face.

Reeling, and wiping a steady stream from his nose that he wasn’t certain was blood or rain, Sherlock staggered after him.  He had hunted this boy too hard to let him go now. The boy was shorter than him; he could catch him.

But luck favoured Sherlock, as a huge hansom burst out of the traffic right before the thief, the horse’s hooves whipping out in front of it, slowing the boy enough for Sherlock to reach him. Grabbing his wrists, he threw the scruffy kid against a shop wall and pinned him there. The wig fell from the boy’s forcibly slackened grip to bathe in the city’s grit.

“I’ve caught you, wig-stealer,” Sherlock breathed. “You’re mine.”

The boy glared at him filthily and tried to kick him, but Sherlock had been ready and sidestepped the move.

“You were a good puzzle,” Sherlock continued. “The best so far.  Took _days_ to find you, but I did. I won.”

“Let me go now and I won’t kill you,” the boy said, eyes dark with menace. 

Sherlock laughed. “I really don’t think you’re in the position to make those kinds of deals.”

“If you turn me in, I’ll be hanged. Do you actually think I'll stop fighting, you posh git?”

Sherlock paused.  He studied the struggling boy before him, observing him. Cataloguing him.  He had been a worthy opponent; and there was a quickness to his dark blue eyes. “I don’t want you hanged,” he said eventually.

“Then _why the hell_ –“

“To solve the puzzle! To show I could!”

“Oh, _well then_ ,” said the boy, every syllable dripping with sarcasm, “I’m so glad I’ll die for the noble cause of your _ego_.”

Sherlock suddenly found he had much less sympathy for his prize.  The rain had soaked through his coat, pooling in his shoes, and patience was running thin.

“I know you’re from a working trade family, recently moved to London on the hopes of better job prospects, unfortunately for you several million other people had that same idea.  Given your financial state school is not an option, and with your injured shoulder the factories don’t want you either.  You’ve got a sister who’s worried about you, but you continue your thievery because it puts food on the table, and you don’t approve of her anyway. Most likely because of the drinking.  That’s enough, don’t you think, to consider my ego warranted?”

“How long have you been following me for!?” the boy bellowed, struggling renewed.

“I have never seen you before today.”

"You're a filthy liar!"

"I am not. But I will give you to the police and they will reward me with cases."

The boy was almost snarling, turning animalistic with his rage, and when he began to fully realise the potency of the searing hatred directed at him Sherlock felt a tremor of unease race down his spine.

Sherlock was so focused on his struggling captive that when the boy glanced down, he did too.  He had only just registered there was something on the boy's foot when a white hairy thing was flung up into him. The coarse and dirty wig drove into his face, stinging his eyes and forcing him to reel backwards.  There was a sickening crack and pain exploded across Sherlock's skull, and he clutched his forehead as the blur that was his trophy ran off, disappearing into the turmoil of London's streets.

Sherlock leant heavily against the wall, trying to force clarity into his vision, but he knew it was too late. The limp, befouled wig lay where he flung it, marinating in the gutter.  It was worse than useless to present it to Mycroft without its thief; everyone would be assumed _he_ stole it. A stupid boy so desperate for attention that he mimicked a criminal to pretend he’d solved a case. Mycroft would be embarrassed to be associated with him.

Eventually, and now thoroughly soaked, Sherlock turned to walk for home, furiously ignoring the fact that not all the water on his face was rain.

 

* * *

 

 

*Thief

**Idiots

*** A boy employed as a groom who rode on the back of carriages, named after their striped yellow and black waistcoats.

 

Cover by  _fuckyeahteenlock.tumblr_ , whose [review ](http://fuckyeahteenlock.tumblr.com/post/53483558124/fytl-historical-au-contest-entry-madness-of)of this fic bowled me over. Thank you!!


	2. Chapter 2

 

  **Six Years Later**

The cold smooth granite of the gravestone was pressing crudely into John Watson’s back.  He checked the loading of his pistol again, feeling the smooth carved wood against his fingers and balancing its weight easily in his palm.  His breath swirled through the air around him, steady plumes rising up to be lit by the half- moon.  From the sky's progress, he estimated most of the night had passed by since he arrived, but he had expected some waiting time.  His only company so far had been the night-animals.

He glanced around his hiding place to check on the freshly turned earth a few plots behind him.

Silent, peaceful.

How it should be; how it would _remain_ if he had anything to do with it.

The first night was the danger night.  Ideally, he would guard it for two or three weeks, until his mother was no longer of any use to doctors wanting to practice their art, but this was the night the gun was necessary.

A soft crunch broke the rhythm of his breaths. John sat up into a crouch, still hidden by considerably sized tombstones, every sense locked onto the sound’s location.

A horse snorted. 

John was sure this was his own horse, carefully tethered under the trees, but he couldn’t afford to be wrong.

The wind that had been steadily whistling through the graveyard blew with sudden ferocity, pushing into branches and forcing them into a rolling dance, and concealing anything suspicious. He'd have to go closer to be sure. John stood slowly, his knees angrily protesting, and with a last scan of the tombstones, began to thread his way towards the woods.

Body snatchers usually worked in groups of three or four, with an escape cart ready.  It was unlikely all of that could go without a sound other than a twig snap, but this was his mother John was defending.  He had failed to protect her body from illness; the least he could do was protect her soul from hell. He would be buried himself before he’d let a single piece of her anatomy leave the graveyard.

He had almost reached the wood line when a gloved hand smacked into his face, and cold, sharp metal pressed against his throat.

“Don’t move, don’t speak. Drop your gun.” said a deep voice in his ear.

With regret, John let the pistol hit the dusty earth.

“Answer me quietly. Who are you?” his captor said, releasing his mouth.

“No one.”

The blade moved, its point pressing in the side of his neck, angled to tear out his windpipe. 

“Watson! My name’s John Watson. I’m guarding my mother’s grave,” John spat.

“Good,” said the man, and released him.

John staggered, and then bent to grab his pistol, but the man clapped his shoe over it instead. Whirling around, John found a tall, gangly boy calmly stowing the knife back into his pocket.

“You were either guarding a grave or were a scout for the sack-‘em-up-men*. Difficult to tell at this distance, in this light. Hence the knife. But I think I’ll keep this,” said the boy, and prised the pistol from the dirt.

John pulled out his own knife, and bared it like a sword. The moon’s soft glow was enough to see the man’s eyebrow twitch in amusement; John knew he looked stupid, but had no other options.

“Ah, yes,” said the man, walking swiftly away, disinterested in John's knife, “that’d be them now.”

Across the clearing, three hunched silhouettes could be seen bobbing systematically between the gravestones. John barely heard himself snarl before he was moving, but a firm gloved hand grasped him immediately.

“We have to wait until they starting digging up the grave. Otherwise they can’t be charged.”

“Are you the police?” John demanded, trying to break the man’s grip, but the long, lithe fingers held the strength of iron.

“A detective,” the man corrected. “Now sit down and shut up.” He manoeuvred them both behind a large cross shaped tombstone, complete with stone angel. 

“I’ve been tracking this group for a few days now,” the detective continued as he forced John to sit beside him, still holding his arm. “A Scottish gang.  Those three are the leaders; The Spoon, The Mole and Merry Andrew.”

“And that’s my mother’s grave they’re robbing.” John hissed, shifting to try and see past the headstone. 

“For god’s sake, _keep still_.”

“What’s your name, anyway?” demanded John, turning to face his captor. “Are you actually a detective? You look about twelve.”

“I’m _seventeen_ ,” said his companion with a dark glare. “The name’s Sherlock. Holmes.”

“That’s the stupidest name I’ve ever heard.”

“Thank you for that juvenile attempt at an insult.”

A silence lapsed between them, and John could hear the faint cutting and thud of spades and dirt.

“How did you know I wasn’t lying, before?” John asked eventually.

“Observation and deduction,” replied his companion with disinterest.

“Sorry, what?”

“You probably won’t understand.”

“Try me,” John said through tight lips.

Sherlock sighed dramatically, as though he was being put through a great inconvenience. “I observe everything, and from that I deduce everything.  And when I’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” He said very quickly, and turned back away from John to watch the body snatchers’ progress.

“For instance,” he continued some time later, with an eye roll, when John’s only response was confused silence, “You dropped out of school at a young age, and unable to work due to a shoulder injury, turned to a life of thievery, which none of your family approved of.  You too have moral dilemmas over it, but are well practiced in ignoring them.  Your mother died of illness two days ago. You rode in on a stolen horse, presumably hidden in the trees.  And you are well accustomed to violence.”

“How-"

“You winced as you sat down, and bent your knees far slower than one would expect. Your trousers are worn on the inside leg, in places precisely corresponding to saddle flaps and buckles.  You've been riding unusually frequently very recently.  You can't afford to buy a horse, nor even rent one, so clearly you've stolen a horse and have been attempting to learn its training and mannerisms; you need a horse you can trust. Other mundanities such as the way you hold yourself, your stiff shoulder, body shape, the way you handle a pistol and knife, and far more, which I noticed the instant I pressed my blade to your throat, showed that you did not lie.”

John considered this.  “That,” he said, rubbing the painful sores on his thighs in thought, “was amazing.”

Grey eyes turned abruptly to focus on him.  “You think so?” said Sherlock tentatively.

“Of course it was,” replied John, and didn’t need the low ambient light to see a flush of pleasure bloom up on the boy’s face.  The grip on his arm relaxed slightly.

“They’ve almost reached the coffin,” said Sherlock, listening to the graveyard. “The angle of their digging has changed.”

John grinned maliciously and sat up into a crouch. 

“You know,” John whispered, “You remind me of someone I met as a kid.”

“How so?” said Sherlock, now examining John’s pistol.

“That whole – observation thing. He was like that.”

“Are you certain it was me?”

“No?”

“Then it wasn’t me.” Said Sherlock decisively, handing John back his gun and releasing his arm.  “No one forgets me.”

John gazed up at the boy, who was standing behind the stone angel, black waistcoat whipping in the frigid breeze.  The moonlight turned his curly hair into a halo, and John decided that he was exactly right. He would not be forgetting Sherlock.

John stood up too; calmly checking the pistol was loaded – it was – and leant against the cool granite to take a few measured breaths.

“He wore a stupid hat,” John said.

“I never wear stupid hats.” Said Sherlock, and armed with his own pistol, motioned to John to advance onto the graverobbers.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

* Body snatchers


	3. Chapter 3

They closed in one plot at a time, guns at the ready for the slightest indication of trouble.  The taller of the three sack-em-ups, identified by Sherlock as The Spoon, was keeping watch as the other two carefully lifted the wooden box from the ground.

"From here they'll act quickly," Sherlock breathed to John, their backs once again nestled against an enormous stone cross. John nodded, every part of him alive with excitement, a brilliant flame burning in his chest that begged to explode into action. 

Sherlock's practicality and professionalism was hugely relieving; he hadn't been entirely sure what to expect tonight, and being unprepared was a worry he could not alleviate.  The other boy's presence was more than a relief; it gave John a role and expectations that he could fulfil. And if John wanted to excel in something, the best thing to do was put expectations on him.

In fact, Sherlock's arrival was a bit _too_ perfect.  The idea had been nagging him since the knife had left his throat.

John frowned to himself.

Why _was_ the boy helping? What could possibly be his motive? He said detective, said he had been tracking them, but he wasn't loyal to John. John would be foolish to be loyal to Sherlock. He was only seventeen, who was a detective at seventeen? Who was a detective at _all?_ Detective implied justice, and he was yet to see anything in his life that invoked the idea of justice.

John felt his body flare up as he came to a realisation, and deciding he couldn’t afford any chances, grabbed the boy's collar and dark blue cravat.

"What - oh," said Sherlock as John levelled his gun to his temple.

"You're with them, aren't you!" John demanded in a furious whisper. "You're part of their gang; you're the one who takes care of people like me, the ones protecting the graves!"

"Don't be moronic-"

"Admit it!"

"If I was, don't you think I would have slit your throat? I gave your gun _back to you_."

"Why help me?" John hissed, pulling him closer.

"I'm solving a case. Helping you is a by-product of that. I couldn't care less what happens to your mother's corpse."

John pressed him against the gravestone, leaning an arm across the boy's clavicles.  "You're going to sell her then. Sell my mum to the doctor's for experiments. She's fresh; she worth far too much for you to just leave her."

The hesitation in Sherlock's face was all the answer John needed, and he pressed the icy metal in his palm heavily against dark curls. The determination in those haunting eyes faltered slightly, and John was suddenly reminded of being pinned himself, by the boy with the stupid hat, whose mask of indifference had also cracked under a fear instilled by John.

John shook the thought away and hardened his resolve to press the trigger.

Sherlock clutched at the arm pressing into his throat, and said, "If you shoot me, they'll hear it and run. You'll never catch them.  Can’t you hear they're already replacing the dirt? We probably have less than thirty seconds; if you hadn’t decided to become an idiot at the most crucial moment imaginable we would have them by now. "

"If- if you try anything, I'll -"

"Let me guess, I get killed."

"I will -"

Sherlock shushed him hurriedly.  John stopped speaking, and they heard a low dull creak echo through the graveyard.

"I was wrong.” said Sherlock, interestedly. “They've got her in the cart."

Dread enveloped John, a wave of ice engulfing him, and he barely paused before relinquishing Sherlock and jumping out from the headstone, utterly exposed. 

A large post-chaise carriage had been backed between gravesites, and he could see a stained white shroud disappearing into its depths.

"A disguise." Sherlock muttered. "You idiot, we’ve lost them. Unless...”

“Unless what?” said John, the words painful as the proof of his failure whipped up the horses and left the graveyard.

“We’ll have to be quick. Where is your horse?"

 

\------

 

His horse stood peacefully where he left her, and John quickly tightened her girth and slid down the stirrups.

"You picked her well," said Sherlock admiringly.

"Well if I'm going to steal a horse," said John, pulling the reins over her head, "I'm going to pick a good one.  I think she's half thoroughbred, she’s got speed in her legs."

"Thoroughbred cross Fresian, I suspect." said Sherlock, running his hands down her legs before picking up her hooves and examining them.  Sherlock was just inspecting her mouth when John swung up into the saddle.

"Goodbye, then." said John.

"Absolutely not," replied Sherlock. "I'm coming with you."

"How? You got another horse hidden away somewhere?"

"Not at all. I will ride with you."

John gaped at him. "You can't ride double, the horse'll collapse, or at the very least, throw us!"

"As ever you see but do not observe. Notice how her coat is mattered behind-“

“I don’t have time for this,” John muttered, and kicked the horse forward, but Sherlock grabbed the reins and steered her in a circle around him.

“John,” said Sherlock urgently, “With what I now realise was clearly luck more than skill, you stole a horse of a great temperament, used extensively by a family with a large number of children; she is used to having all sorts of shenanigans on her back. She will not throw us.  The saddle is quite large and has no horn. We are both light weight, you are short, and we are good riders.  Now give me the stirrup so I can mount up behind you.”

“Give me back the reins,” John snarled, trying to wrestle them free and in the process accidentally slapping them across the horse’s neck; an action that would cause most members of her species to bolt.

But she remained standing, calm even; with an ear locked on John, waiting for proper instruction and ignoring the idiot blocking their path.

“We don’t have much time, John,” said Sherlock, making it sound as though _he_ was the one being unreasonable. John sighed and made sure he had a firm grip on a chunk of black mane before relinquishing his left stirrup and leaning forward to give Sherlock some room.

With far too much grace the detective pulled himself onto the horse, nestling into the saddle before John sat back down. Into his lap.

“I’ve dropped the stirrup,” Sherlock said, his breath caressing the back of John’s neck with alarming intimacy.  John slid the ball of his foot into place and nudged the mare into a walk. 

He told himself that he was being put off by how his balance was upset by the changed riding position. It had nothing to do with how blazingly aware he was of every point of contact between him and the man sitting around him. John had just managed to pull his consciousness away from the swirling heat made by friction and connotations that was building between their rubbing thighs, when Sherlock put his arms around waist and lent into his back.

John jumped and some of the weight vanished, but Sherlock’s hands remained draped along his front and gripped his waistcoat.  “Easier to balance,” Sherlock explained, a whisper that resulted in his breath tonguing at John’s nape.  John’s forehead beaded with sweat, cool in the frigid air, and he was sure that the hammering of his heart was making the entire horse shake as she picked her way through the tombstones, towards the road.

“They won’t be moving faster than a trot,” Sherlock said, “anything else will attract attention, and as they believe themselves unpursued, we have the advantage.” 

John pushed the mare forward into a faster walk, and when they reached the gate Sherlock indicated that the body snatchers had turned left.

“I’m going to move her into a trot,” John said. “See how she goes, it might not work.”

“The horse will be fine,” Sherlock replied, “the bigger concern is how you will go balancing, since you typically ride in rising trot and that clearly is not an option.”

“ _Your_ biggest concern is how I will go balancing the punch I’m about to throw at your face.”

“Without me,” Sherlock said, “you would have-”

“I would have stopped those thieves before they took my mother’s body, that’s what I would have done!”

“No, you-”

“And now you’re sharing my horse and I don’t even know if we’re headed the right way.”

“I told you-”

“What if you’re wrong?” said John swiftly. “I swear to you, if you’re wrong and my mother is gone, your body will be serving as a replacement.”

“I am not wrong,” Sherlock said, sounding highly aggravated and a bit scandalised at such a suggestion. “And this body snatching gang will not beat me.”

 “Has anyone ever beaten you?” John muttered to himself.

Sherlock did not seem to recognise it was rhetorical. “One,” he said. “One person has beaten me.”

John turned to look at Sherlock over his shoulder. “How?” he asked.

“He blinded me temporarily, hit me, and ran away.”

John laughed. “I like him.”

“I think you would get along well,” Sherlock said dryly.

John smirked, pressed his heels into the mare and she pulled herself into a smart trot.  Her good breeding lent itself to a precise, smooth action, her high steps translating into a remarkably smooth pace that at any other time John would have heavily appreciated. But while Sherlock seemed to have found his rhythm, John could not sink into its beats and found himself bouncing awkwardly, despite his actions.  He was being thrown upwards and forwards, unable to settle back because of the moron taking up half the saddle, and sailing head first over the horse’s shoulder was looking more likely with every second.

So without further warnings, he sat down, awkwardly but determinedly nestling himself into Sherlock’s lap, leant back slightly and urged the horse into a canter.

Oh god.

He had definitely not considered how this would translate with two people on one horse.

The mare thundered down the road, her strides sure and precise; a roll of movement that started with a rise in her hindquarters and fed forwards. Riding at a canter required a relaxed, deep seat, and this meant the horse’s action fed into her riders.  Specifically their hips.

That was how John found himself hurtling down an unknown street in the darkest part of the night, sitting practically on top of the most ridiculous and frankly alluring person he’d ever met while they leant into each other, hips swaying in a synchronism that was lighting his body on fire.  Fighting it would almost surely mean losing his seat; his rigid spine was already throwing him slightly out of time. And he would be hanged if anyone discovered what was happening in the front of his trousers.

John forced his muscles to relax, and concentrated on the horse below him.  He was gripping her tightly with his knees, and coupled with the alarm and fear he was no doubt broadcasting to her, the horse was only picking up speed as she raced through the blackness. John found his body leaning further backwards as he calmed himself, merging himself with the horse’s rhythm, and when Sherlock’s chest came forward to meet his back, and his fingers traced the edge of his waistcoat before caging John’s body into his own, John did not fight.

The last of their discrepancies vanished, their bodies welded together by wicked heat, and they rode as one. 


	4. Chapter 4

“You should slow her,” Sherlock whispered, his deep voice alight with an excitement that tasted of danger. “They are just around the corner.”

They bumped down into a trot, then a walk.  In the absence of thrumming hooves, the steady clack and groans of a carriage just ahead was all that broke the night air.

“So what exactly is the plan from here?” John breathed back.

“One of us dismounts, runs alongside the carriage and jumps on. Between us and our pistols we take possession of the carriage. I get the crooks and you get the shroud.”

“That’s thrillingly specific,” John said.

“Well-”

 “I’ll dismount,” John said suddenly, the conviction in his voice taking him by surprise.  He wanted to ... prove himself. Show that against logic and reason, even perhaps his own character, his suspicions about the gangly curly-haired aggravation whose lap he was currently sitting in had lessened slightly.

 “You’ll have to climb onto the carriage while it’s still moving. It’ll be difficult.”

John smiled, thinking about his previous trade as a wig stealer, before that annoying posh brat had tried to arrest him. He’d grown up clambering over every type of carriage that had been manufactured this century. “I can do it,” he replied.

“Do you still have your gun?”

John checked his pockets and holster.

“Yep,” he replied. “And my knife.”

“Good,” Sherlock said. A tug on the reins and the horse stopped, huffing from the ride, her neck slick with sweat that wet John’s hand as he dismounted awkwardly, being unable to swing his leg around properly due to Sherlock.

His knees weakened on impact with the ground, and he leant against the horse while Sherlock adjusted the stirrups. The shocking absence of the body whose heat he had been sharing was an added cruelty; every part of him except his brain, which was firmly rooted in denial, was yearning to reconnect.

To resume the friction.

To increase it.

“Are you alright?” Sherlock asked as he took up the reins. John nodded, turning his face so Sherlock couldn’t see the embarrassed flush burning down his face and neck. The night was dark but those piercing eyes saw more than any he’d known before.

“If you can, run in time with her hoof beats,” Sherlock instructed, tapping the horse with his heels. She burst into a brisk trot, and John ran beside her, falling into step as quickly as he could.

The carriage loomed up quite suddenly, despite the warning its clinking buckles and creaking wood were announcing.  Sherlock brought the bay mare alongside it and called out a greeting, while John scoped out the back of the post-chaise. The driver was sitting behind the main carriage, the reins threading over its hood and into his hands. John watched as he carefully reached for the whip in response to Sherlock’s arrival.

A thrill of alarm shot through John, and he found himself sprinting towards the coach, knife freed from its case and gleaming in his hand.

But the man only touched it thoughtfully, fingers tracing its smooth handle, before releasing it. John exhaled a breath he didn’t know he’d held.

Then the driver reached into his waist coat.

The pistol that was drawn from its depths gleamed once in the moonlight as its barrel aligned itself with the back of Sherlock’s skull.

The deep roar that broke itself free from John’s chest was all the warning the crook got before John had leapt onto the back of the still moving carriage and stabbed the hand that threatened his partner. The man screamed, clutching his ruined fingers; the sound spooking the carriage horses and reins whipping them further – they exploded into a gallop, the post-chaise heaving as it dragged behind them.

The pistol fell at John’s feet and he kicked it away.

The man, who was tall and thin, so John supposed he must be The Spoon, turned to grab John but in a flash sharp silver was against his throat.

“You almost shot my friend,” John snarled. “Do you know what I do to people who shoot my friends?”

The Spoon’s adams apple bobbed alarmingly close to the knife’s brilliant edge as he tried to swallow his fear. John bent closer to the filthy man, and whispered, “You can jump off the carriage or stay and find out.”

The Spoon did not stay and find out.

John clambered into the vacated seat, the carriage’s bouncing coupling with slicks of blood to make gaining a purchase difficult. He wiped his hands on his waistcoat before peering over the post-chaise’s roof to get an idea of what else was happening.

Sherlock was bent over the mare’s back, riding her hard as they fought to keep pace with the two panicked coach horses.  The fattest body snatcher, identified earlier by Sherlock as The Mole, had opened the windscreen and grabbed the reins The Spoon had dropped, and was fighting to control the stampeding horses. But as John watched, Sherlock drew alongside the left horse and with a slash of his own knife, cut the left rein.

That meant Merry Andrew was in the cabin with his mother’s body, as in a moment of hideous oversight by the crooks, none of them were riding either carriage horse.

Sherlock was pulling up his horse and over the clatter of the carriage John could hear The Mole screaming profanities at him, the exact words lost to the wind but the tone of them clear.  It was impossible that The Spoon was the only one armed with a pistol, and Sherlock was an easy target.

John had to disable The Mole.

He twirled the knife in his hand and with skill born from a long childhood of thievery, plunged it into the carriage’s soft roof. Its serrated edge bit eagerly into the hood. Grabbing onto a hand rail, he jumped up onto the corner of the roof, keeping his weight on its frame and was about to slash another deep line when he spotted Sherlock galloping behind the carriage, evidently manoeuvring across to the right side to cut that rein.

Sherlock was standing up in the saddle, ignorant to the road, staring at John.

John took an absurd moment to admire his riding skill.

“You..!” Sherlock shouted. “It’s _you_!”

“What’s me?” John roared, clutching the shaking roof. It had been much easier to balance as a boy, and even more so when horses pulling it hadn’t been mad with fear.

“ _You’re the wig-stealer!_ ” Sherlock cried, urging the heaving mare closer.

  “What?” John said, blanking with confusion.

“The one person who beat me! A boy who stole wigs! He cut carriage roofs! _That’s you!_ ”

John gasped. “ _You’re the pompous tit who tried to get me hanged?_ ”

“Yes!” Sherlock shouted, seemingly overjoyed at this accusation. “You punched me and left me in the gutter!”

“I head butted you!”

“You kicked the wig in my face!”

“ _You were going to get me hanged!!”_

BANG.

The bullet sailed harmlessly into the darkness, but the mare below Sherlock jumped and he was thrown forward.

“ _SHERLOCK!”_ John cried, but the man righted himself, and spurred his mount forwards, aiming for the remaining rein.

From its trajectory and the direction of the gunpowder that now tarnished John’s lungs, it had been fired by The Mole. This made his next course of action very clear.

He opened up the roof, blade eating away the seams and jumped through the hole with practiced precision.  He landed on the spongy seat and used the same move he’d beaten The Spoon with; driving the blade into The Mole’s wrist and forcing the pistol to drop from his grip.  It fell out the open windscreen onto the dashboard before bouncing over the axel and onto the road, gone forever.

Leaving The Mole to his injuries, John saw Merry Andrew open the right side carriage door. As soon as it unlocked the door whipped open in the wind. For the umpteenth time that night, a gun was being drawn in Sherlock’s direction. John fought the carriage’s inertia, but the turbulent motion was impossible to navigate, and he fell against the seat before crashing into the windscreen, dazed. 

A thick hand grabbed his own, the one that wielded the knife. Slightly dazed, John tried to push his attacker off, but The Mole was a man grown and easily twice his size.  The man shoved him harder into the windscreen, murder in his eyes. Merry Andrew smirked and considered his gun.

“ _No_ ,” said The Mole, breathing like a bull, “this one’s _mine_.”

He crushed John’s hand until he was screaming with the pain, and his prized knife clattered to the carriage floor. The Mole picked it up, delicately, using his injured arm to pin John and his piggy eyes to relish in his distress.

The knife’s tip traced its future path along John’s neck.

John tried to glance out the window, but The Mole grabbed his chin harshly and forced him to stare at his hideous, belching face; his dirt encrusted nails scratching at John’s face. “I don’t think your friend is coming to help,” he said with dark glee.

John doubted it too, although he tried very hard not to let the fear show.  It was disappointment and shame that shone through instead; grief that he truly had let down his mother.  Once that knife slashed neither of them would be returning to the graveyard. They would have no proper burial.  No last rites, no blessing by the priest. Their souls would wander the earth, tortured, unable to enter heaven from the disgrace of being mutilated.

“We’ve just doubled our intake,” The Mole said with a warped grin.  “Two bodies for the doc-”

BANG!

The gunshot exploded in the confined space, and John howled as his ears rang.   But the distraction was enough for him to pull out his own pistol at last. And without hesitation he shot a bullet of his own, which buried itself deep into The Mole’s flesh, churning into his heart and stopping it.

Looming over the body, John brandished his gun, trying to aim as the carriage jolted with new urgency.

The scene that met his eyes was quite different to the last time he’d seen it.

Sherlock and Merry Andrew were locked together in what John suspected would be skilful defensive combat if the lurching carriage wasn’t throwing them off balance at every other moment.  A pistol lay on the floor, having bounced out of reach; John supposed it was the source of the first gunshot.

With a power that defied those lithe limbs, Sherlock smashed a vicious fist into Merry Andrew’s nose, forcing a spray of blood up onto the roof. The body snatcher stumbled back into the upholstery, and Sherlock approached with a follow up right hook, when the thief turned to slash at Sherlock’s chest with his foot.

The glint of a hidden blade was subtle, and John cried a warning; the detective flung himself sideways.  For a second it seemed he’d escaped unharmed, but the carriage jolted and Sherlock could not recover his balance.

Down he fell, hitting the carriage’s frame, hands scrambling for something to grab, but only air met his desperate fingers. John had only just remembered the open carriage door when Sherlock vanished through it.

Triumphant, Merry Andrew bent towards the discarded pistol. But before he was even close John’s second bullet smashed through his brainstem, and a fountain of red redecorated the cabin’s interior.

John pulled himself up, clinging to the upholstery, gazing and the carnage surrounding him. Then he spotted it; thin fingers were hanging on fiercely to the door frame.

“Sherlock!” he yelled, and fought his way to the door; there, hanging rigid with fear to the swinging door and outside of the carriage, was Sherlock Holmes.

“Grab my hand!” John cried, reaching for him.

“I can’t,” Sherlock said, barely able to pronounce the words, his eyes white as he stared at the cobblestones racing away below his perilous foothold.

“You can,” John locked his eyes onto those terrified grey ones, watering in the wind, and held his gaze until it was returned.  “You can,” he repeated.

Sherlock closed his eyes and lent back against the door, exhaling heavily in a forced rhythm.  He murmured a word, unheard by John, and leapt. 


	5. Chapter 5

“You okay?” John asked as they both recovered from crashing back into the cabin and landing on fresh corpses.

“Fine,” Sherlock replied, prising himself off from John and struggling to stand in the swaying carriage.

“We’ve got to stop this thing!” John cried as Sherlock tried to help him up, but an extra large bump made them fall back down.  “Unless we wait for the horses to tire?”

“We’ll hit something before then,” Sherlock replied from somewhere near John’s feet. “It’s frankly a miracle we’re still on the road.”

John pulled himself up to look out the windscreen, thinking about their options. “I can’t see anything past the horses.” He observed.

 Sherlock clamoured up beside him.

“Speaking of which,” John said, turning to him, “what the hell did you do with my mare?”

“Steered her close to the carriage and jumped off.”

“Right,” said John, “you’re stealing me a new horse after this. And since all your genius plans have gone so exceptionally well this evening, I’m enacting my own.”

“What?” Sherlock said as John unlatched the windscreen and stepped out onto the dashboard.

“I’m going to stop the horses!” John yelled back over the wind and pounding hooves that threatened to steal his voice, crawling forward to keep his balance.

He faintly heard the mangled words; “But I cut the reins!”

“I know!” John roared. “I’m not balancing on the footboard for _fun!_ ”

John paused, gripping the last few centimetres of the carriage tightly.  The horse’s hindquarters were exploding beside him, and their breaths were ragged with fear and exhaustion.

The slightest misstep and he would end up a smear on the road.

He carefully considered his next move.  He’d have to be quick.

John steadied himself for a moment, internalising the carriage’s sway; though the horses were bolting their movements were becoming less haphazard, though the rhythm remained chaotic.

He had it.

John readied himself to step forward, but before he did so, he looked back. Sherlock met his eyes, and John fancied he saw a whisper of fear amid their expression.  But that was probably his own terror spiking into his thoughts.

He swallowed and focused on the task.  He’d been clambering over carriages his whole childhood - if he could do this, if he could save both of them, perhaps the life of thievery that he’d never truly agreed with would have been worth it.

John let go of the footboard and stood up tentatively.  His arms held up for balance, he reached forward, and pressed his palms against the heaving croups of the two horses. The left one jumped upwards, threatening his pose, but John leant further forward, transferring his weight. The horses’ strides were mismatched so his hands were bucking unevenly.

Very carefully, keeping as much weight as he could on the horses, John stepped out onto the pole that ran between the two equines.

With quick steps he moved along it, sliding his hands up the horses.  Their heads had dropped at the unexpected weight pulling their necks down, further threatening to upturn the carriage, so John moved swiftly. He grabbed the left horse’s trailing reins, and then the top of the right horse’s collar; and pulled himself on its back.

Delighting in his success, John collected the left horses’ reins and threaded them through his mount’s buckles; he’d need them later.  Twisting a clump of black mane into a safety handle, he leant forward, over his horse’s shoulder, trying to grab at the loose rein that whipped the air – but this brought him too off balance for safety. John cursed and studied the uncomfortable buckles and belts he was sitting on.

The false girth! John jammed his opposite foot into it, using it as a lever to keep him aboard, and this time the rein lashed right into his hand.

“I’ve got them!” he announced, collecting both of his horse’s reins and untying the other horse’s.

“ _No!_ ” John cried. The far left rein slipped from his exhausted fingers, back to thrashing the far side of the carriage.  Getting it back was impossible.

He couldn’t stop the carriage with only one horse under control; both reins would be needed to even attempt to communicate with these terrified beasts, and he only held the left rein of the unridden horse.

“What is it?” Sherlock called. John swung round to find the man clinging to the footboard himself.

“I’ve only got three reins,” John said. “I can’t stop them!”

“You don’t need to!”

“ _What?_ ”

“Don’t try and stop them – swing them right! You have both right reins, correct?”

“ _Are you insane_?” John bellowed, leaning back over his steed.  “We’ll run straight into a goddamn tree!”

“We won’t – there’s an empty field to our right. No fences.”

“How the bloody hell do you know that?! Its _pitch black_ , Sherlock, we could be running past Buckingham Palace and I wouldn’t know -”

“I know exactly where we are,” Sherlock said. “I’ve memorised every street in London.”

“You’re insane. You’re an absolute madman,” John said, clinging to his horse with new desperation.

“JOHN!” Sherlock cried, “The field’s not going to be there for much longer! _Turn the horses!_ ”

John twisted the reins in his hands. He stared furiously to the right, but the clouded moon keep it secret.

“ _John_ ,” said Sherlock, almost pleadingly. “ _Trust me_.”

John hesitated only a moment before pulling on the reins.

 

 

\---

 

 

When the horses finally stopped after being turned in endless circles by John, churning up the grassy field into a ring of mud, the first glimmers of sunrise were breaking across the horizon.  John carefully climbed off his horse’s back, and joined Sherlock in removing them from the harness and checking for injuries.

“This one’s okay,” John said, releasing the hoof he’d been inspecting. “Though I think he picked up a stone but threw it; the sole’s bruised.”

Sherlock grasped John’s horse’s bridle to lead it away from the carriage, leaving John to mull over the contents of the post-chaise.  The bodysnatchers were even uglier in death. But he pushed the bloated arms of The Mole away and lifted the seat; and there, starkly peaceful, lay the shroud that encased his mother.

“I did it, mum,” he whispered. “I got you back. We’ll put you back in the graveyard, and you’ll go to heaven, just like you deserve, okay?”

“Alright?” Sherlock asked, slightly hesitant.

“Yeah,” John said, though his face felt a bit hot.

“You have just killed two men. Possibly three.”

John chuckled and wiped his eyes. “Well, they weren’t very nice men.”  Sherlock joined in his laughter, and followed him as he shut the cabin door and climbed onto the driver’s seat at the back of the carriage.

“Suppose we’ve got to flag down the next carriage so they can take a message to the police?” John said, swinging his legs from the bench.

“To my brother,” Sherlock rectified. “He practically runs the country, which despite being highly irritating, is useful if there is ... mess...  to clean up,” he gestured in the direction of the crooks.

It was some time before a smart hansom drawn by a flashy grey came trotting down the road.  John had been savouring the warmth of the first sunshine on the back of his neck; an experience he thought he’d felt his last several times in the last night. Sherlock swung down to intercept it.

“What will you do now?” Sherlock said when he’d returned. They shared the driver’s seat this time, trousers’ fabric once again meeting, and the possibilities that the night’s horse ride had revealed glowed afresh in John’s thoughts.

  “Not sure,” he said, watching the sun turn the grass into gold. “Find another horse. Travel.  Wave guns at people and demand their money.”

“Really?”

“ _No_ , not really. Why?”

Sherlock loosened the fabric coiled around his neck and lent back into the carriage. “I’m trying to determine a probability.”

John frowned. “What probability?”

“The probability of us meeting again after this day.”

John immediately felt hot all over. “I – um...” he stuttered, “that’s not something that needs to be left to chance.”

Sherlock fixed him a piercing stare.  Those blue-grey eyes, so potent in the night time gloom, were nothing but enhanced by the early morning light, but John met them with confidence.

“I would like that,” Sherlock said softly.

John shuffled so his back pressed against the carriage, his arm nestled against Sherlock’s side. “Me too,” he said, leaning into warm shoulder near his temple and closing his eyes.

“Thank you,” John whispered.

Long fingers squeezed his hand tightly, and the first smile in a very long time spread across John's face.

 

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, extra thanks to the wonderful people leaving helpful comments as I updated this. Writing and researching this was a lot of fun, albeit somewhat challenging as it definitely pushed my comfort-bubble as a writer.
> 
> Any comments or critiques are very welcome, please tell me what you thought of it; I'm really striving to improve my writing and all feedback is useful.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this story!
> 
> Some artistic licence was taken regarding the logistics of horse riding and the carriage design.


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